


The Bats

by Gampyre



Series: Fictober 2020 [10]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't think too hard about it, Drinking, Fictober, First Kiss, Fluff, Flufftober, Halloween, Holding Hands, Light Drinking, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Pumpkin carving, Scary Movies, Watford (Simon Snow), halloween party, no beta we die like the mage, pitch manor is haunted, wraiths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27287839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gampyre/pseuds/Gampyre
Summary: Days 20–27—Eight prompts in one! Plastic vampire teeth, witch hats, black cats, spooky ghosts, pumpkin carving, bats, scary movies, and haunted houseDev and Niall throw a Halloween party at Baz's big creepy manor, and Penny and Agatha talk Simon into attending. Turns out Baz isn't so bad when he's a bit tipsy and not trying to kill him.OR: Dev and Niall (and a bunch of feral bats on film) (and a creepy wraith) play matchmaker to two idiots in love.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: Fictober 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949773
Comments: 4
Kudos: 135





	The Bats

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm still trying to finish these! So here's eight prompts in one. Enjoy!
> 
> Flufftober prompts  
> [here](https://subpar-selkie.tumblr.com/post/628080856195547136/flufftober-prompts)

_Simon_

A black cat crosses our path as we walk up the path to the house. A bad omen. “I told you this was a bad idea,” I hiss at Penny, but she waves me off.

“Don’t be silly, Simon. It’s just a party.”

“Yeah, a party at _Baz'_ _s_ house. Remind me again why we’re here?”

Agatha answers that one. “Because we were invited, and because half the school’s going to be there, and because we almost never get to have any _fun,_ what with all your hero shit all the time.”

“It’s not shit,” I say.

“Come on, Si, the party will be fun!” Penny says, patting me gently on the shoulder. 

Agatha rings the doorbell, and a woman who I assume is the housekeeper lets us in. We enter the foyer to find a fair number of people already there. It’s not quite _half the school_ _,_ but I recognize a lot of familiar faces. Rhys, Gareth, Elspeth, Trixie, Keris… but where’s Baz? I slip away to look for him while Penny and Agatha are hanging up their coats.

I don’t find Baz in any of the rooms I check—his house is bloody enormous—but I find his friends Dev and Niall at the dining table, carving pumpkins. “Where’s Baz?” I demand.

Dev looks up and shrugs. Niall peers at me suspiciously, then points his carving knife at me. “You better not be planning to provoke him tonight. It’s Halloween. Take the day off.”

I glare at him. “I’m not! Just looking for him.”

Niall still looks wary, but tells me, “Knowing him, he’s probably in his room, hiding from all of this.” He gestures at the crowd of students in the other room.

“Why would he be hiding at his own party?”

“It’s not his,” Dev says. “It’s ours. We planned it, just borrowed his house. You have to admit it’s a great setting for a Halloween party. The place comes pre-haunted.” He smirks at me.

“Yeah, haunted by Baz,” I say. Dev snorts, and Niall smirks.

I turn and lean back against the counter, watching a group of students playing with a Normal Ouija board at the other end of the dining table. I can’t remember whether ghosts actually exist or not. The Tooth Fairy is real, but Santa isn’t. Goblins are real, but who’s to say whether ghouls are? 

“Wanna carve one?” I hear Niall ask. I turn, and see that he’s talking to me, holding out a carving knife to me. 

“Uh, sure, why not?”

* * *

I end up carving a grotesque vampire face into the pumpkin. It wasn’t supposed to be grotesque, but my carving skills aren’t that great. (I blame the flimsy little knife.) (Both flimsy knives—I snapped the first one Niall handed me.) It turns out Dev and Niall aren’t awful company. Dev’s easygoing, and Niall’s pretty funny. We’re laughing at my pumpkin when Baz finally makes an appearance.

The bastard isn’t dressed up. He’s not even wearing a witch hat, like half the other students are (that’s been a running joke the past few years—mages dressing up like wizards and witches). What he’s wearing is a plain white button-up and a pair of dark trousers, and he looks fit as hell. His shirt has a bit of blood on the collar.

“You spilled,” I say, pointing at it. “Make a mess eating that black cat I saw out front?”

I expect Baz to say something snarky back, but he just grins at me, and his smile reveals fangs. _Fangs!_

“Aha!” I say. “I knew it! You have fangs! I see your—” I stop abruptly, because Baz has taken his fangs out. His _plastic_ fangs. Sodding git.

“What were you saying, Snow?”

Dev and Niall are doubled over, cackling like a pair of evil witches themselves. I can’t remember why I was enjoying hanging out with them, so I turn to leave and find Penny. Niall grabs me by the elbow and pulls me back. “Don’t go,” he says. “Basil’s just having a bit of fun. Look, Baz!” he turns my pumpkin around so Baz can see it. “Isn’t it lovely? Snow made a portrait of you!”

Dev and I both laugh at that. Baz frowns at all three of us, but then grudgingly joins in. And just like that, the tension is broken. It seems Baz and I have an unspoken truce for the night— _taking the day off_ _,_ as Niall suggested. Baz isn’t half bad when he’s not tormenting me or pushing me down the stairs or trying to get me killed. 

Dev keeps bringing over Halloween-themed cocktails, and the alcohol makes everything seem warm and easy. The alcohol also makes me notice Baz’s silvery-grey eyes. And his silky black hair. And how soft and pink his lips are. He keeps putting the vampire fangs back in and taking them out, taking the piss, and I can’t take my eyes off him.

* * *

Most of the party guests leave around midnight, but a few of us stick around. Dev and Niall and Baz, of course. And me and Penny and Agatha. And Trixie and Keris and three other blokes that I don’t know well, but who I’ve seen around Watford. Someone suggests watching a movie, so we all head down to the basement, which is, well, creepy as hell (though not a dungeon like I’d imagined), but it has a great setup for watching films, with reclining sofas and a pile of beanbags and a big projector.

Somehow I end up next to Baz on one of the sofas. I say _somehow_ like it’s a mystery, but what really happened was Dev and Niall sat on the sofa, and I’d happened to be talking to them when they did, and they left room for me, so I sat down next to them—Dev, then Niall in the middle, then me. And then Baz walked over and told Dev and Niall to scoot over, so they did. Except they didn’t scoot toward me, they scooted away from me. Leaving Baz no option but to sit between them and me or go somewhere else. He gave me an odd look when he sat down, then cleared his throat a lot and tried to get Niall to scoot over more to give him more space, but Niall wouldn’t move. And that’s how I ended up squeezed between the armrest and Baz Pitch. His arm brushes mine as he shifts around, getting comfortable.

There’s a funny feeling in my stomach. It must be the alcohol. 

The movie starts and someone spells the lights out. There are some giggles from the direction of the pile of bean bags on the floor in the corner before someone shushes whoever’s over there. Niall tosses a blanket at me, and I spread it out over my lap. Dev and Niall are sharing their own blanket, and I figure Baz is probably cold—it is a bit chilly down here. I hold the end of my blanket out to him, and he takes it, though he leaves a few inches of space between us.

I try to focus on the movie; I really do. There’s a fuckton of bats in it. Bats everywhere, honestly. It starts out with some lady who finds a bat in her house and catches it, and then all these other bats start attacking her, and then all the bats attack the town. I lose track of the plot at some point, because I feel Baz’s knee press against mine under the blanket, then move away.

Was it an accident? Did he mean to do that? I peek at him without turning my head. He’s facing forward, watching the movie. I take a deep breath and shift my legs apart, just a bit. Just enough so that my leg is barely brushing Baz’s. He doesn’t react at first, but just when I’m thinking I read the whole thing wrong and I’m about to scoot as far from him as I can, he presses his knee to mine again, and doesn’t pull away. 

That funny feeling in my stomach is back, and my leg tingles where it’s connected to Baz. (I don’t think it’s just from the alcohol anymore.) After a few moments, when I’m sure he would have pulled away already if he didn’t want to be touching me, I make a decision and brush his ankle with my foot. I hear him gasp a little beside me, and he presses his leg more firmly against mine.

“All right, Baz?” I hear Niall whisper, from the other side of him.

Baz nods. “Fine,” he whispers back.

I slip my foot behind his calf and rub the other side of his ankle with it. Baz still isn’t looking at me, but I see the corner of his mouth twitch upward. So we’re really doing this, then. Alright. The alcohol may not be the source of these new feelings (which I’m thinking aren’t actually that new after all), but it’s making me a bit less concerned about the consequences than I might normally be. So I go for it.

I drop my hand into the space between my hip and his. I let the backs of my fingers brush Baz’s thigh, ever so lightly. Just enough so that he knows it’s there. A beat, two beats, and then he takes it. Cool fingers slip between mine, and just like that, I’m holding hands with Baz. On his sofa. Under a shared blanket. In his giant, gothic, haunted house. I peek at him, and catch him looking back at me with a soft smile on his face. I smile back, and then we both turn back to the movie. He rubs his thumb over my palm and gives my hand a little squeeze. I know we’re just holding hands, but it feels like we’ve just figured out something monumental.

I hold Baz’s hand for the rest of the movie (don’t ask how the film ends—I have no idea). We start out with our fingers interlaced, holding tightly onto each other, but as the film stretches on, our grip relaxes, and we explore each other’s hands with our fingers. I trace his palm with my fingertips; he pinches my knuckles gently between his thumb and forefinger. I flinch when he runs the pad of his thumb across my ragged, chewed up fingernails, but he doesn’t pull away, even then.

When the movie ends, he wraps my fingers tightly in his hand and doesn’t let go, even after someone turns the light on. He doesn’t let go until everyone else has stood up and started to head upstairs. We’re left alone in the room. He looks at me then—really looks at me—and I want to say something to him, but I don’t know what. I think—well, I think he might kiss me, the way he’s staring at me. But just when I’m about to lean in, he drops my hand and starts for the stairs. “Coming, Snow?”

And just like that, the moment is over.

* * *

It’s late, and most of us are too tired or tipsy to drive, so Daphne offers to let us stay the night. We all get guest rooms, because Pitch Manor is practically a whole fucking castle. I end up in a room by myself, down the hall from Baz. The problem is that the house really _is_ haunted. As soon as I lie down in bed, I hear chains rattling from underneath me, and a distinctly ghostly moaning sound. It’s downright creepy.

And that’s how I find myself knocking on Baz’s door at three o’clock in the morning.

“Baz!”

The door opens to reveal Baz in pajamas—silk ones, button up, open almost to his navel. “What?”

“Er, can I come in?”

He nods and opens the door wider. “What are you doing?”

“Your house is haunted,” I tell him. “There was something under my bed.”

“Oh, that’s just the wraiths. They’re harmless.”

“They’re still creepy as fuck. Can I sleep in here?”

Baz blanches, then flushes. It looks odd, on his grey complexion. “You want to sleep in my room.”

“Uh, yeah? Is that okay?”

He nods. “Yeah, yeah I’ll just—There’s—here.” He goes to his bed to grab a pillow and one of his blankets, then starts laying them out on the sofa. The buzz is wearing off, but I’m still feeling a bit brave tonight. I walk up behind him and wrap my hands around his waist from behind, and I feel more than hear his sharp intake of breath. “Snow.”

“Hmm?” I spread the fingers of one hand over his stomach, rubbing circles with my thumb. He sighs and relaxes back into my chest. I reach my other hand down to take his, and then I sit on the couch, pulling him down to sit next to me. I leave my arm wrapped around his waist to keep him close to me. He reaches up and runs two fingers down my cheek, along my jaw, behind my neck.

“Simon,” he whispers. And then he kisses me.

I lean into it, into him, my hands pulling us closer and my body pressing him back into the cushions of the couch. It feels fucking amazing, kissing Baz. Better than I imagined (and I’m realizing I’ve imagined it quite a bit). He brings his knees up on either side of me and wraps his legs around my waist as I shift us so we’re horizontal, me on top of him. He buries his hands in my hair, then slides his hands down to my hips and grips me there, holding me against him. 

I kiss him and kiss him until my chin is raw from the stubble on his face and Baz tells me he’s lost feeling in his left leg. I shift a bit so I’m not squashing his hip as much, and he gasps again. I realize he’s hard. (We both are.) I shift a bit more, rolling my hips into him without exactly meaning to, and he makes a choked noise. I glance up to see him looking back at me with a mix of arousal, panic, and embarrassment, so I sit back and scoot off of him. He sits up beside me.

“Wow,” I say. 

“Yeah,” he echoes. “That was…”

“A lot.”

“My first kiss.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it good?”

“ _Yeah_.”

“Is that all you’re going to say? _Yeah?_ Have I rendered Baz Pitch speechless for once?”

He grins. “Yeah.” And he kisses me again. Not for very long this time, though. He looks positively drained, and I feel the same.

“Can I…” I start, and then I stop myself. I don’t want to push him.

“Can you what?”

“Can I sleep with you?”

Baz chokes again. “I don’t think—I mean, I’m not sure that’s—It’s a bit fast?”

Now it’s my turn to choke. “No!” I’m blushing terribly. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, yeah, someday. Probably. I’d like—I mean—Anyway I just meant, I’m tired, and you’ve got a big enough bed and—and I just want to be close to you. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Baz breathes. “Okay.”

And that’s how we end up pressed together, shoulder to toe, in Baz’s childhood bed. I fall asleep with my arms around his waist and his arms around my shoulders, my face pressed to the silky front of his pajamas. I don’t know where things will stand tomorrow, but at least for now, I’ve got Baz right where I want him.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is based on the film they watch, which is completely made up and somewhat based on the real film _The Birds._
> 
> Come say hi to me on Tumblr!  
> [Gampyre on Tumblr](https://gampyre.tumblr.com/)


End file.
